Cord Already Cut - Which/How Many Streaming Subs Do You Have and Why?

HriniakPosterChild

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Jul 6, 2006
14,841
500 feet above Lake Sammammish
What if those folks don’t want the pirates or the diamondbacks or the tigers, but just want the Red Sox, there should be product for them.
The Red Sox don’t own the right to show live video their games outside their own territory. No team does. That all got tossed into the shared revenue bucket years ago along with the money from selling merchandise with the team logo on it.

And the entity that does own that right doesn’t want to split out “just the Red Sox” and “just NYY” and “just the Cubs” because they know they’d make less money selling those packages than they do selling the “All You Can Eat” buffet they have now.
 

Bongorific

Thinks he’s clever
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
8,414
Balboa Towers
LOL why so I can crash the server with the streaming services that I have to watch just one or two shows?

I basically have every single one, and they all suck. I have Peacock now, which is basically my Office streaming device. I have Apple, which is my Ted Lasso streaming Device. I have Disney which is my Mandalorian streaming device. I have Netflix which is my Community and Arrested Development streaming device. If I had to keep just one it would be Netflix, because they made Queens Gambit, bought Cobra Kai, American Vandal and Ozark.
Bob Iger - 1
Nip - 0
 

Scott Cooper's Grand Slam

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Jul 12, 2008
4,231
New England
I keep a spreadsheet of my subscriptions, which is a sure sign that I have too many.

Cable-ish
1. HBO Max: I subscribe for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. I'm on a six-month promo price. I wouldn't keep subscribing based on the current catalog, but there are two things in the pipeline that I'm really looking forward to: Curb Season 11 and The Many Saints of Newark. I might, conceivably, go see Newark in the theatre but if Curb is also out in September then I might just hang on to HBO.
2. Amazon Prime. I'll cancel this. The shipping benefits are pretty useless to me in a rural area. There is no Whole Foods nearby. I'm not a fan of The Boys.
3. Disney+: I said this in another thread, but I'm on the three-year promo price. That expires this year. I enjoyed The Mandalorian and WandaVision, but I haven't felt compelled to re-watch either of them. I liked the chance to catch up on some Pixar that I missed (Wall-E and The Incredibles), but I don't have kids so I'm not really the target market here. I feel like I got my money's worth for Hamilton alone, though. If LMM ever does a standalone release I'll buy it and cancel D+. If Hamilton isn't standalone, I may continue to subscribe just to watch it.
4. Hulu. Their $1/mo for a year deal around Black Friday is the best deal in streaming. I'll renew this for as long as I can.
5. AppleTV+. Free because I bought an iPhone, but so far this has been the easiest for me to justify full price. Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest are great shows. I enjoyed Palmer. I haven't started For All Mankind or The Morning Show yet, but I'm looking forward to them.

Gaming
6. PlayStation+: At about ~$28/year, it's worth it for the game discounts.

News
7. Washington Post digital access at $29/year. I was a regular reader when I lived in DC. Their national coverage is good. I got sick of hitting the paywall.
8. Wall St. Journal for $4/mo (digital access + Saturday delivery). This is the first year I've been a regular reader of WSJ, and I really like it. I can't afford the regular subscription price, though, so I know I've got a phone call with retention in my future.
9. The Athletic: I'm on the $12/year deal, which is a steal. The sports coverage here is excellent.

I'm on a six month trial of Apple News+, but I'm not digging the experience so far. It doesn't seem to sync between my iPhone and iPad. I think I'd rather just pay the publishers directly. I'm also considering a subscription to The Atlantic, but I'm not a subscriber yet.

Tech Services
10. 1Password: If you're not using a password manager, you really should be. 1Password is my favorite. I happily pay $36/year for this. The peace of mind alone is worth it, but I didn't anticipate how much I'd love the cognitive relief of not having to remember multiple passwords, and how much time I'd save with their easy log in.
11. Backblaze: Backup of my primary personal machine.
12. iCloud Storage: I was a longtime Dropbox customer, but I've migrated to iCloud.

Seasonal
13. I'll subscribe to Fubo, YouTubeTV or another service that gives me easy access to Pats games once the season starts.
 

LoweTek

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May 30, 2005
2,178
Central Florida
What if those folks don’t want the pirates or the diamondbacks or the tigers, but just want the Red Sox, there should be product for them.
Economics of the game should have changed once regular YouTube and Roku and 4G came out

sorry for derailing
I’ll bow out
I use MLB.TV, free from T-Mobile. I watch all or part of almost every Red Sox game and I live in Florida. I have AT&T TV for the Florida Fox regional sports networks to able to watch the games when the Red Sox are playing at Tampa or Miami. Theoretically, I could watch 162 plus all playoffs. The only place I know of where you can't use MLB.TV for the Red Sox is New England where presumably you can get your hands on NESN one way or another. Depending on the teams who claim the MSA where you live and some markets such as many in North Carolina, have so many teams claiming the MSA you're blacked out of a lot games. It's really the only negative with MLB.TV. There is almost always a workaround though and you can always tune the radio audio if all else fails. No blackouts for the WEEI broadcast.
 

LoweTek

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May 30, 2005
2,178
Central Florida
It’s not like they are liberal in their use of funds

but ok,I’m willing to go $5.25 (honestly, I’m willing to go $10.50 if they made it easy)
Perhaps selling NESN to Red Sox and bruins fans in California or Florida or wherever, can make up for that lack of leverage.
Back in the Direct TV days, I used to subscribe to the sports network package and MLB package. NESN was included in the sports network package. Bruins were blacked out but because I had the MLB package, I could watch the NESN Red Sox pre-game stuff and stay on the channel for the game. This was especially handy for things like world series parades and ring ceremonies. I don't know if you can still do it or not. MLB.TV does not have this pre-game feature, one of its few flaws.
 

LoweTek

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May 30, 2005
2,178
Central Florida
So after reading all of your responses I changed several packages today.

I had until today:

Sling Blue with Sports Package: $45/month (this was primarily for Discovery, Mrs. LT loves the crab show, and MLB Network, maybe NHL network once in a while)

Hulu + commercial free with the Disney+/ESPN+ and Showtime and Starz discounted at $38/month. (Disney+ for Star Wars related mostly but a few good things otherwise, particularly the Right Stuff material - series and original movie - which I enjoyed. I have watched a few ESPN+ live sports but not much. Mrs LT loves Outlander so the Starz. Showtime was mainly for Shameless but it's over - and poorly ended I might add.)

AT&T TV MAX $101/month with tax (includes HBO Max and Cinemax for a year and I may or may not continue it. I think it goes to +$12.99 or $20.99 for both which may not be worth it. Free is good though. They do not have MLB network which I do not understand really)

Netflix 4k $19/month (Why have HD when you have a 4k TV? - Some really good stuff on here - hadn't been a subscriber for years until my sister recommended it for the Chess series which was very, very good.)

Amazon Prime which I watch quite a bit and I don't even want to look at my purchasing history for the past 12 months. If 50% is applied to the video, it's still only $5/month.

I have an OTA antenna, get all network TV and then some (60+ channels but a lot of religion and Spanish) and use the Tablo DVR - lifetime sub - which I recommend. I add commercial skip on Tablo for $20/year. Well worth it. I record multiple shows and honestly, about 80% of TV watching is off of the Tablo DVR. Commercial skip is great for Jeopardy especially and Mrs LT still likes American Idol which is virtually intolerable without commercial skip.

MLB.TV free from T-Mobile. I do not get Netflix free because I have a highly discounted T-Mobile package, so I am told.

I don't know if they count in this discussion but we have Sirius in two cars. Mine is currently free for 90 days (new car) but I think it's about $20/month when it's billing for both.

I also have Amazon Music Unlimited HD at $14/month. I really like high definition music playback and the selection is endless. I wish I used it more.

So streaming TV itself used to total - allowing $5/month for Prime - $208 per month plus $6 for Xfinity 250 MB which I need for work regardless.

Today I made changes:

Dropped Sling entirely. Discovery+ commercial free added for the crab show ($7/month). Net savings $38/month. Lots of other networks on there too.

Let Showtime and Starz go. Wasn't watching them once Outlander and Shameless ended. Saved $15/month. Will grab Starz again when Outlander restarts.

So I'm down to $155 not counting the Tablo commercial skip.

I feel a little better.

Thanks all.
 

gtmtnbiker

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Jul 15, 2005
1,696
I currently have the following:

Hulu No-Ad (shared with 2 other people) $4/month
YTTV (shared with 2 other people) $22/month
MLB.TV ($4/year Slickdeals T-mobile deal)

In addition to Amazon Prime

HBO Max ($10/year) from someone on Reddit. After using it for four months, I realized that it's a stolen account. That is, this guy sells various accounts using stolen passwords. After 4 months, it stopped working so I contacted the seller and he gives me another account/password. That's when the light dawned in my head. So I stopped using it and no longer have HBO. People need to make sure their passwords are unique for each site and check the login activity.

Did have Netflix but it's currently on paused while I catch up on shows on Hulu/Amazon.
 

Murderer's Crow

Dragon Wangler 216
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
23,430
Garden City
Bumping this thread to say that I think Netflix is going to be my first and most unexpected casualty. Consistently struggling to find quality content and the netflix original content has not been good enough to keep it. Especially their movies.

Disney is quickly becoming the leader of our household with HBO Max right behind it.
 

Caspir

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Jul 16, 2005
6,881
Yea, I'm a Netflix/Disney+/HBO subscriber, and Netflix is getting out of here at the end of the cycle. My son likes Pokemon and Ninjago, but there is almost nothing worth watching. Does Ozark ever plan to drop a season? I don't even remember half the characters at this point. Frustrating. I've already dumped Hulu because I was bored with it despite the Disney bundle.
 

cornwalls@6

Less observant than others
SoSH Member
Apr 23, 2010
6,235
from the wilds of western ma
Just cancelled Netflix(though they offer a come back anytime within 10 months without losing account). Recently decided to try HBO Max beyond the free trial, and don't want to pay for both. I found Netflix to be getting weaker and weaker on content I'm interested in, and way too geared towards true crime, which I've recently come to lose interest in. That leaves me with:
FUBO
HBO Max
Amazon Prime Video(though that's mostly a function of being a prime member. If it were a stand alone service, I don't think I would subscribe).
Apple TV+* - I have a year free due to a recent phone upgrade. Likely will not renew when that runs out. Everything else is a free service.............. Which leads me to a question: Is anyone using the Xfinity streaming app on fire stick? Does it work well? I've recently considered going back to their TV service for my primary set, to get live TV, sports, and particularly NESN. Would then Stream on my other sets. I'm basically stuck with their internet for the foreseeable, and If I can make the cost for everything similar to what it is now, I would do it. I'd love to dump FUBO, which I really don't like, but need since the bullshit dispute between NESN and YTTV.
 

Vinho Tinto

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Dec 9, 2003
7,044
Auburn, MA
YouTube TV has made unlimited simultaneous streams* and 4K programming a $20 add on. I currently don’t need either, but I’m glad it’s now an option.

*Google says you have to be on “your home wifi.”
 
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LoweTek

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
May 30, 2005
2,178
Central Florida
Got Premium 4k Netflix for a $9 plus up on my T-Mobile bill today. If you are T-Mobile, I recommend looking into it. I was paying $20 per month.
 

InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
40,359
Pioneer Valley
1) Pandora.

We still have DirecTV, almost entirely for NESN, CNN, and MSNBC, and mlbn.
This month we had Prime free, and couldn't find a damned thing to watch on Prime video. Everything we tried was stupid. We watch YouTube a lot, for chamber music, nature videos, Colbert, and old noir movies. I watch the TCM app every day. None of the above has any fee, but we would not be able to watch the TCM app if we didn't drop a boatload of cash on DirecTV. The only thing I've paid for with any regularity is Pandora. When baseball season ends, we'll try Netflix again, mostly for Kominsky.
 

HampshireCounty

New Member
Aug 6, 2010
24
Any ideas on the best way for cord-cutters to watch the Olympics? Last time around I heard good things about both Youtube TV and Hulu's live TV.

I'm more interested in watching complete events after they're over than live streams.
 

Vinho Tinto

Member
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Dec 9, 2003
7,044
Auburn, MA
Any ideas on the best way for cord-cutters to watch the Olympics? Last time around I heard good things about both Youtube TV and Hulu's live TV.

I'm more interested in watching complete events after they're over than live streams.
YTTV has a Tivo-ish feature where you can choose which events to record. Since the user has unlimited space, I selected everything. So it will record everything across their networks. Anything additional would likely require Peacock.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
SoSH Member
Mar 24, 2008
7,180
Any ideas on the best way for cord-cutters to watch the Olympics? Last time around I heard good things about both Youtube TV and Hulu's live TV.

I'm more interested in watching complete events after they're over than live streams.
Can't your just subscribe to Peacock for one month?
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
72,203
I was told the peacock stuff is mostly highlight type stuff. NBC regular will be doing the feel good stories and the popular sports (gymnastics swimming and tf) on weeknights and the beach volleyball, rowing canoeing and I think 3x3 bball on weekend days.
The sports/coverage that Hampahire I think wants are going to be mainly on NBCSN, the Olympic Channel and USA network with some on CNBC nights and weekends.

Telemundo will also have a lot of soccer in Spanish
 

HampshireCounty

New Member
Aug 6, 2010
24
Thanks folks, Ale's right about what I'm after. Looks like both Hulu and YTTV have NBCSN and the Olympics Channel. YTTV's free trial is two weeks, and Hulu's is only one, so I'm going to sign up on Saturday and see how it works.
 

drbretto

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Apr 10, 2009
12,054
Concord, NH
No one else with CuriosityStream? It's like 20 bucks per year. From the original creators of the Discovery Channel, I believe. Tons of good stuff.